• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The founders of Deliver Us Mars and Deliver Us the Moon studio KeokeN have announced that the rest of the company has been laid off

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
brmA0nU.png

In a statement published on X, CEO Koen Deetman and managing director Paul Deetman said the Netherlands-based studio was forced into the decision after exhausting all possible options for completing planned projects or taking on other work.

KeokeN announced in February that it had laid off four of its core team of 19, after its founders took pay cuts and went without salaries for “the past few months”.

And in March, the studio revealed it had unsuccessfully pitched five games to 40 publishers in more than 200 meetings over the previous two years.
“Heartbroken, we’ve had to lay off our team at KeokeN because of nothing substantial materializing directly after our visit to GDC,” reads today’s statement. “We’ve unfortunately exhausted all our possible options for publishing, work for hire, and co-development.

“It is our utmost priority to make sure our lovely team finds a new home somewhere else, so if you have any positions available in Programming, Tech Art, Porting, Level Design, Audio, Animation, Production, Office Management, contact us, so that we can introduce you to the very best people who have been at the heart of KeokeN over the past 10 years.

“Paul and I are heavily beat, but far from beaten. It’s our personal mission to rebuild KeokeN brick by brick like we’ve done before, in the name of our people and to continue the legacy of our games.

“Personally, we are preparing a Kickstarter soon for our much-anticipated Deliver Us Home. This is one small step for KeokeN, one giant leap for Delivering Us Home. A game we will build for you and with you.”
It was announced last week that Deliver Us the Moon will be released for Nintendo Switch “soon”.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
im not talking about the devs or this studio, but the first time i saw the trailer for both of these games , i dont understand what is the actual gameplay, and it looks boring.

I guess these type of games doesnt get alot of attention from most gamers out there.
 

GHG

Gold Member
It's a shame that gamepass couldn't save them.

While it may be worth a look if it ever makes it to Game pass I cannot recommend buying this. The Moon was delivered successfully, but Mars can go back where it came from.

 

Skifi28

Member
Do we have any sales numbers for Mars? Anecdotally, many people I know bought it (including me) and I would imagine a game made by 20 people or so didn't have an AAA budget that needed millions to make money.
 

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Do we have any sales numbers for Mars? Anecdotally, many people I know bought it (including me) and I would imagine a game made by 20 people or so didn't have an AAA budget that needed millions to make money.
Lower numbers than Deliver us the Moon that's for sure. The thing is that Deliver us Mars was just added into the PS+ Extra game catalog for this month so the situation must have been very dire if they had to close down even with the bump in revenue coming from that deal.
 
Last edited:

Solarstrike

Member
One of the few games (Deliver Us the Moon) I pitched in for Kickstarter. Great game which I need to finish on the backlog. Devs will be ok, lots of talent there and it shows greatly in the game(s). Keep your head up guys and gals at KoekeN!
 
Interesting as proofs of concept. But I was a bit mixed in my experience with their final products.

The market is savage right now. But not anything and everything under the sun should be greenlit.
 

damidu

Member
shame, though have to admit second game fell pretty short to build on the promising first one
they wanted to add scope, ended up magnifying their jank in the process
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom